Weymouth, Massachusetts, that’s where I’m heading today. Back in time. To the early 2000s.
“”This is Sour” – Lemon Peel” (RORA-14) is the name of the only album Awesome Animal Ambulance released. It came out on CD in 2003 on a label called Aurora Seven Records that was based too in the same city. I was familiar with this label thanks to The Snow Fairies, but didn’t know many of the other bands. So discovering some of it now. Very cool.
Awesome Animal Ambulance was formed by David Conway on guitar and bass, Josh Smith on guitar, synth and vocals, Robert Roman on synth, vocals and drum machine and Tina Randall on vocals.
The 9 songs on the album were recorded at the Shop in Weymouth and were engineered by Jerry MacDonald and Alison Gordon. Mixed by Jerry too and mastered by Brian Doser.
The songs were “This is Awesome Animal Ambulance”, “Grover Cleveland”, “Count on Us”, “Operation Kitty”, “Hunting Season Behind the Wheel”, “Thank You for Listening”, “Hurrah! Hurrah!”, “Count on Us (Demo version)”, “Mr. McBasil and the Lady of Duke; Francis”.
The album had lovely lovely artwork by Suzy Coady. You wonder how come the band didn’t release more records. I remember playing this quite a lot back in the day.
The band also contributed songs to two compilations, but they are album songs. So “You Can Count on Us” is on “Aurora Seven 7″ Sampler” (RORA-007) released by Aurora Seven in 2001. Then “Operation Kitty” was on “Clouds and Balloons, Vol. 1 – The Search for Skull Island” that Asaurus Records (ASA035) released in 2004.
Looking at the band members, I see that David and Tina were also on Panda Squad who also released records on Aurora Seven. Josh Smith had been in the punk group The Glow from Boston.
And what are they doing now? Did they continue making music? Would be great to find out.
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
